


When There Are No More Troys Left To Burn

by Little_Girl_In_Bloom



Category: The Iliad - Homer, Troy (2004)
Genre: Briseis centric, Diomedes and Briseis are vastly underated ok, F/M, Greek gods, Greek myth - Freeform, I was really dissapointed with the Silence of the Girls so I wrote my own, Iliad, Ilium, Most of it is not cannon, Patroclus is a sweetheart obviously, Probably super historically inaccurate, The Trojan Cycle, Troy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 08:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Girl_In_Bloom/pseuds/Little_Girl_In_Bloom
Summary: Sing Goddess of the forgotten women, whose silence speaks a thousand words to us today, whose stories must be crafted from air and rumour for how they were overlooked, those wretched forgotten women who raged and lived.Briseis the Once-Queen is a figure most well known as being blamed for the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is lost to the world as to what happened to her after the events of the Iliad. As one of the few prominent women of the epic, I think it is time to give her a voice that does more the weep, but shouts, scorns and spits blood.





	1. Briseis and the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, readers. How goes the day? Story time before story time: I was reading a book called The Silence of the Girls which promised to be a retelling of the Iliad from Briseis' perspective. It was ok at first, but then switched to Achilles' and Patroclus' perspective so that was a big lie? Anyway, I had a weird dream where I asked Achilles what Briseis does, woke up and thought (insert Keanu Reeves tone): 'WOAH!' Better get that written down there. So I did. If you want something doing right, do it yourself. So strap yourselves in for some OC characterisation, half-arsed themes, inconsistent characterisation, shite spelling and an abundance of my boy Diomedes- who, in my humble opinion, has the best line in the Iliad. He's just so gosh darn cool. Try not to die of boredom and enjoy what you can. Peace out.

  
 

I dared ask him once, the best of the Greeks, as I lay caged in his arms.

“What will you do, godlike Achilles, when there are no more Troys left to burn?”

I do not know entirely what I meant by it at the time. All I knew was that my soul was dying to voice it. I think now what I was asking was more for my own sake than his.

He looked at me with the sort of probing quality that a hawk’s stare has, though his face was dim in the moonlit hut. I did not feel like a hare. I felt more like the field that hides it.

Not too distantly, I could hear the sea curling up the shore, against the near-decade rotted ships and over the sands once owned by Good King Priam. His very eyes were the colour of that sea, his mother’s domain. Often, in my mind, for I had never told him this, he was the ocean. Great and vast and as temperamental as mercury. I had learned to no longer be afraid of those tempestuous waters. I merely anticipated drowning.

I had seen both lion and lamb. I have washed my countrymen’s blood from his body, scoured my sibling’s life-force from his blade and shivered in his hut when his battle cry reaches from city to seashore. And afterwards, sometimes, in the whispering hours before Rosy-Fingered Dawn rises from her clouded bed and when Achilles’ craving for a woman settles into something softer, I hold him to my womb as he wets it with tears and run my fingers through his auburn hair.

I have feared the god and held the boy, powerless and omnipotent.

I find it hard to hate him then, I will admit. It is so much effort to hate. I wish I could keep it up against him, for my brothers and my husband and my father. For all of Troy.

I do and I always will, but the mettle of such a vow is dulled by time and resignation. Perhaps I am too tired to resist what amicable moods he does show, too want of good company that I see hell morphed into heaven. Sleep is a cousin to Death and I feel both on each shoulder at all times.

Perhaps I am too cowardly. This settles more heavily inside me. It is easier to lie in a killer’s arms when he is on your side, as I do now. From the day he took me, he has been on my side. Or rather, forced me on to his.

I find my thoughts always twist and turn like an ever falling coin. Here, the calm face, the protective hands and soothing words. Flip and there, the callouses where a sword ought to touch on the nape of my neck, the fact that I am only safe because I am owned by the greatest of the Achaeans.

I wonder which face will answer my question, if it is answered at all.

He has never hit me. He thinks he is greater than that, but I see as much as much virtue in it as a Hunter of Artemis, goddess of the chase and the chaste, remaining pure. It is expected. It is the least he can do. But then again, he rarely hears my voice when it has a questioning tone, though he is fond of my soft words when I feel like saying them. For a moment, the steady fear pulls back to the forefront of my mind again. I ready myself for bruises, for broken bones and an eternity unable to pay Charon the Ferryman.

Still, I have to know. What will become of the warrior without the war? I do wonder, despite what people may think. Surely, there is more to the man than the monster, as there is more to we women than our faces and flesh. I hope.

At last, those predator’s eyes narrowed in warning before he peeled his warm arm from around my shoulders and turned his muscled back to me. Not a single scar lay on it.

Such a reaction did not surprise me, though the tautness of my body bled out all in one breath. I inhaled anger.

I was only half a wife to him, a wife for nightfall. A slave. Who was I, Briseis the once Trojan queen, to ask the opinions of gods and men? That is how they must see me. I am here to part my legs and hide his tears. A solid, beautiful representation of their pride.

Anger fills me as I lie there, pooling in my stomach, inflating my lungs like water. Am I not worthy enough to bare his thoughts while I may bare the rest of the burdens lain over my shoulders like a death shroud? Burdens he had laid there, mind. Rage at not being able to do more with my life. Guilt for not hating him as I should. No, I decided, turning my back on him myself. He is not worthy of my sympathy, not when he holds practically every other aspect of myself in his calloused fist.

Outside, the sea swashes particularly loud and my thoughts flow once more back to Achilles’ mother, Thetis. Even she was a gift to Peleus. She, an immortal goddess. Is that the lot of us females, even the glittering and divine? To be ruled by mankind? I am torn always when thinking of Thetis. Do I damn her cursed womb or pity her cursed marriage?

Why is everything in my life a dichotomy? A question?

A heavy sigh escapes me. Sometimes I feel I have too many questions, that I am constantly halving myself with contradictions. Perhaps it would be easier to be the fools men cultivate us to be. Ignorance is bliss, I think, but satisfaction from something hard earned is so much greater. I regret ever wishing such a thing as to be simple. I must pursue answers, I must understand, even though no one will ever remember me as quick-thinking Briseis. All I can seek is all I can take comfort from.

I know I have a little power, though I despise the fact it is granted by men. My very breath is permitted by men.

As a- well, I suppose as a _prominent_ woman of the camp, if there is such a thing, I have become a sort of leader in my own right. Greeks like their women as much as plunder, stealing them from any conquered town for profit, dishwashers or bed warmers. As a result, there are many women in the camp and even some children as old as eight, products of union. I have made it my purpose to do what little I can with what little I have.

I am proud to have whispered of negotiations and prisoner exchanges in Achilles’ ear rather than enslavement. Patroclus even, soft-hearted as he is, never shies from listening to my opinion, supporting it even. It makes me feel like Iris or Artemis, defender of virgins, to whisper in a powerful man’s ear and make him believe it is he who fulfils the idea. I was the one who got women’s communal huts erected so we have a place to sleep away from the beds of soldiers. A few, but not many, have gone free because of me. _After all, husband, will her ransom not be prettier than she is_? The rest I try and shelter beneath a plucked and raw wing, occupying them with chores out of the men’s way, providing herbs that can be crushed to look like blood on a rag to mimic the monthly cycle to deter unruly men.

I smile at the last thought though I know the expression is grim. What funny things these Greeks are, to be repulsed by the only blood naturally spilt.

Often, I have heard the curses of foot soldiers, always under breath of course, that I wield swift-footed Achilles as quick-thinking Odysseus wields his silver-tongue. That is what they say when they are being polite. I do not mind the title of _Trojan Whore_ or _Queen of Sluts_ or other such other nicknames as much anymore. A small price to pay for the needle of power my captor-husband’s ownership grants me. In the darkness, I feel a scowl curdle my face.

I feel unfathomably dirty with emotion.

Silently, for that is how we survive, I remove myself from the bed and slip on a breezy robe. The stickiness of sex clings to me, but I do not want to basin water already so close. I want salt-sea and salt-air. I take one last look at my captor-husband, who also sleeps with a scowl on his beautiful face and a dagger beneath his pillow. I know he is awake. I consider pushing the question.

I do want to know. I want to know so badly it hurts, to hold him, beat him, until he cries out the answers. I want to understand him. I want to understand this war. He is my greatest interpreter. What will he do when there are no more Troys left to burn?

But I know how stubborn he is, immovable as a rock. I still feel dirty.

I step past the tripods of gold and plundered wealth of my people, piled up like neglected letters in corners of the well-made hut, make haste without looking at the fine armour and weapons of my captor, over the bodies of fellow slaves and out into the salt-aired night. Semele opens her bleary eyes, gives me a sleepy smile and mumbles that I should not stay out to late. I cannot resist giving my best friend a goodnight kiss on the brow before heading for the exit. I debate staying on the threshold, idly playing with my dark hair as I do, eyeing the groups of rowdy men orbiting various fires carefully, though not as carefully as I used to do.

They are growing restless, like lions left to pace a cage to long. Agamemnon- and my thick brows lower at the thought of that grotesque man –will rally them for another senseless fight soon. This evening, he had called an assembly of kings, intent on conquering some other town on the coast, Achilles had told me.

He always did the same thing before battle in the morning: he went to address his men, sharpened his weapons, examined and polished all his armour until it gleamed like dawn, asked me to bathe him and then made love to me. He estimated they would be gone for three weeks if Poseidon favoured them, which he always did. I stare at the ocean-god’s domain at the lip of the hut, a sickening concoction of every emotion in the world splashing inside. I needed to empty myself out.

Many men were in their tents and huts similarly tangled with their lovers, both male and female. Others were out drinking what courage they could. They surround the fires, idle and drunk, pawing at the slaves that pass like cats do mice.

I know they will not dare touch me. Much of the fear I once had Achilles took from me, as he did everything else. Being half-wife to the best of all the Greeks would allow me to walk naked and unmolested through the camp if I wished. So I step out, eager for the relief of the seaside and the softness of sand. I do not wear a veil.

I am his favourite. I am allowed this privilege, even though it should be a right. The right of a Queen. My fist curl and uncurl at my sides.

I try not to think of the life I had before Troy started to pay for the crimes of Helen and Paris, a marriage bought by a goddess’ vanity. So I begin to walk towards the white sand shore ready to toss that ghost into the sea, even though I know the waves will always push them back up the beach. I am sick of the flotsam and jetsam of the past. Besides, it is time to cleanse myself again.

The first group of men I pass are the Myrmidons. They are always armoured and sleep with their heads pillowed by shields. I know each by name now and they know me. Often, I have tended to their wounds when they return from battle or poured their wine. They include me in jokes and even aid me in defending women sometimes, when it suits them and when they can be bothered. They nod at me now, still and quiet compared to others, carving out a slice of peace before battle. I think that is more unnerving than anything: their calmness.

I imagine my fellow Trojans shivering behind their walls. I see Paris crooning to a stiff Helen, Hector kissing the faces of Astynax and Andromache, Hecuba praying for what sons she had left. All of them human and destined to fall. Surrounding me now are gods and monsters.

Patroclus, easy going and bright eyed, beams fondly at me, fair hair bouncing. I feel a returned warmth in my belly and I smile back on treacherous lips. He beckons me over and I stand by him, but do not sit, still intent on going to the sea. I feel something might be more permanent in my ritual tonight.

“And what brings you out so late tonight, fair-cheeked Briseis?” His voice is soft and incongruous with his black armour, scuffed and dented. He seems like a dandelion grown from ash.

“Achilles not doing his duty by you?” Jokes one of the men, Eudorus.

I know he does not mean it cruelly, but it is still an effort not to cringe, especially when another adds with a vulgar thrust of his hips, “Obviously not if she’s still walking!”

Patroclus opens his mouth, which is already curled into a sneer, but I stand taller and spit out with a sharp grin, “I doubt your little prick could make a three legged sheep limp!”

The laughs I raise are louder than the ones before and I put my hand on my hip with a triumphant tilt as the soldier’s jaw hangs low. I did not think it was very funny, but wine amplifies nature and most of these men were in good moods tonight. Patroclus claps me on the back, the other hand clutching his stomach as I revel in my wit. I do not blush and bite my tongue anymore when I hear them speak so uncouthly of me. I roll my shoulders, stand taller and bite back.

Feisty Briseis used to be one of my favourite faces, but then I realised she is only liked because she is a parody of strong women. A figure in a comedy, fictional and unserious. The fact I do not have a sword to my throat for the insult proves that. If a man had said it, blood would have been spilt.

“Ah, that’s my Briseis.” Patroclus, still shaking with my little joke, gets up and brushes off his tunic. “I assume you were going for a walk before you were rudely interrupted. Come, I will accompany you, friend. I would hear your voice before battle tomorrow.”

I thank him but shake my head, sobering back to myself or as close as I can get. “Sit. I would like my own company for a bit.”

I began to pull away, but he gripped my shoulder and faced me. The laughter had softened in his eyes and though he smiled, there was a serious note lining his quiet words. “Are you alright?”

His arm around my shoulders is warm and he looks at me the same way he did when I was fourteen and first captured, he just three years my senior and yet filled with compassion beyond his years. He put his arm around me, pulled me close and told me not to weep, for he would bring me honour as a bride. I thought he meant as his bride and I remember the fleeting thought that if he was comforting me now, perhaps he would make a kind husband, even if he was not especially handsome. There is a difference between admiration and attraction. But then he said he would make Achilles marry me. I only wept harder then, for my father’s blood was still beneath his nails, and I think Patroclus panicked, for he began rubbing my back in soothing circles and speaking of Phthia, nurse of heroes. Of the green hills and the great halls of Peleus, of endless farm land filled with growing things.

 _“He is not so terrible,”_ Patroclus had promised me, stroking away my tears gently, trying in vain to hide them though they still fell. _“He will honour you as a good husband and your children shall be beautiful and happy. I will make sure of it. And then we shall all go home to Phthia.”_

Of all the Greeks, he was the first I began to pray for when they went to battle against my countrymen. Others have since lodged their way into my unpatriotic orisons, except Achilles, who will fall to no man. He will live forever, I know it. Patroclus fell like a seed into my heart and grew there like a weed, opening up the way for my irrational fondness and curiosity. Achilles barged his way in as he did the gates of Lyrnessus and I do not think I could get him out now if I tried. Still, it is Patroclus I hope most does not meet Horse-Taming Hector on the plains before Troy.

I do not need to ask him what he will do when there are no more Troys left to burn. Half his heart is in his beloved Phthia.

How I wish he would go back now.

“I am quite fine, friend.” The word does not burn my tongue as I feel it should. His touch does not make me writhe and is as pleasant as a cloak on a cold day when I leave the Myrmidons. “Come back soon. And whole, Patroclus!”

Clear and pretty as the ringing of a golden bell, his laughter pierces the air, neatly complementing the swash of the moonlit sea. “Do not worry! _I am Patroclus_! Not even Horse-Taming Hector could fell me! Not even a god!”

Rolling my eyes, I make my way closer to the beach, taking care to keep close to what I deem ‘friendly’ bands, those aside from the Myrmidons.

I see Nestor’s men, though not the man himself. Young Antilochus is not as early to bed and as late to rise as his old father. He seems a dichotomy of features. The gangly edges of youth forcibly sharpened by war, like rough, uncut diamonds. Nestor’s men are all too busy with their jugs of wine to notice me.

The Ithacans could be mistaken for scholars for how they sat, still and alert, eyes focused only on the one speaker closest to the fire. He was bearded, a little ragged looking, and his hair was silver streaked. He could not be called handsome or even kingly. Ardour and stress deepened the creases of his face, into each was tucked a worry for every man he had rallied from his island. Nothing about him looked spectacular or captivating, but he held the entire counsel’s attention like Orpheus. I even spotted a few foreign armours amongst the audience, which I soon melted in to, eager to observe.

He was an animated story-teller, enunciating the tale with hand movements and vivid expressions. I came close enough to watch his silver eyes glitter with the life of the story: Zeus’ rebellion against tyrannical Kronos. I hear someone whisper Agamemnon’s name and I catch enough meaning that I snort. I paused unseen by the rest at the back, but fluid and clear speaking Odysseus caught my eye and gave a respectful nod, then mimicked a mutilating sickle slice. I stayed until the end of the story, caught by the net of his silver words.

I was not the only woman there. Many Trojan women lay comfortably next to their Greek men, as enraptured by the story as I was. This would never have happened ten years ago. Unveiled women unchaperoned amongst soldiers listening to tales of the sex and violence of the gods? They would have had many words for us but all meaning the same thing, and all said with a gorgon’s venom. Still, despite my intrigue, my eyes fell on more than one bastard-rounded belly. The weight of the observation causes my head into a tilt.

How many of them had husbands as I did? How many lay with brother-slayers each night as I do? What will they tell their children?

I blanch at the thought, suddenly remembering the need to wash myself. I take what herbs I can and wash myself always, but no precaution can keep a woman’s body from doing what the gods made it to do: give life, greatest of all powers. Another question adds itself to my tally. Why if life is so great are women not more respected compared to men who, in my experience, only ever seem to deal out death?

Odysseus ends his tale and I give one more nod of respect, which is returned, before he starts another tale, that of poor, clever Prometheus who blessed us mortals with fire, before I leave.

Of all the Greeks, I think Odysseus is the most wretched and miserable. Achilles carries his sadness like his shield, a necessity not to be put down for fear of his life. Odysseus by contrast, unlike most of the kings gathered on this beach, gained more glory in an assembly proving his point than on the battle field. He sent his miseries and hopes across the sea back to his wife and now ten year old son. Messengers and plundered gold to make up the distance between them. There is just a certain aspect about the king that draws fondness out of you, like that you might feel for a sly, old dog who you admire more for their cunning than punish them for it. Still, slippery as he is, even he could not escape this war.

It might be hidden under the razor of his wit or a boisterous remark, but Odysseus had the same look in his eye that I saw in my reflection: a captive. When he comes to Achilles’ hut for wine and counsel, he grows quieter and quieter with each sip, as if it causes him to shrivel inside and retreat into himself.

I flip that coin in my mind. Heads. He knows how I feel and wants no more to do with this war than I do. Tails. If he knows how it feels, he should use that silver-voice of his and worm his way out of this mess.

Next I pass the two Ajaxes, though I hear them before I see them. Broad chested Great Ajax booms like thunder and roots himself in the sand as if he owns the earth. The Lesser Ajax is just that: a wiry tree compared to the invincible oak, though with something similar in the cut of his face that said _I will become the great one_. _At any cost_. I do not want their eyes to fall upon me. Repulsed by some unnerving force, I skirt as far around them as possible, not realising how close I had been drawn into the Mycenaean and Spartan orbit.

The brother cultures eat, drank, trained and slept together. Their kings are nowhere to be seen, undoubtedly making some poor girl miserable and nursing that cruel pride of theirs. Grand huts mark where they make their beds, inside the plunders of all of Troy.

We have many stories about the beginning of this terrible war, immortalised in poetry and tragedy and legend. Some say it started with a declined wedding invitation. Others, the foolishness of a boy who only wanted love. Many more spit is was the foolishness of a woman, a favourite of those with guilt-leaden consciences. Few credit the greed of kings as avaricious as they were belligerent were to blame because few every heard Trojan tongues tell the tale. Look hard and see it all. You will find a kernel truth in each.

If I had to name the cause of this war, I would call it emotion. Emotion in all its bleeding colours.

In this world, we feel too strongly and think too little. There is compassion in the head if its quiet council can be heard above passion’s thunder. The kindness of lack of excess.

If these soldiers are to be summarised, that is the word. No one has ever heard the name Menelaus the Reserved or Achilles of the Level-Mind. All around me is _excess_ : lust, greed, power. My senses drown in it, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the numeracy.

I need the sea: silencing and clean. But first I must navigate this mess.

Agamemnon has the biggest contingent, hard won and hard trained, though the warrior-king tended to favour the latter title these days, as Achilles said. Merely based off the behaviour of these brutes, I can understand- minutely –why Helen chose Paris, also said to be soft-handed, sweet-mouthed and as beautiful as she. Achilles said Aphrodite had a hand in it, though I do not really care. Many men blame their follies and short-comings on gods. One would think they would be a little sympathetic to us women in that regard, hm? But women folk do it to, it may seem. I cannot blame Helen for choosing a little sweetness for herself if half the tales are to be true.

These men are anything but sweet, though, by some instinct I want to smother, my heart goes out to a few of the boys to soon dragged into armour and manhood as we slave-girls were deemed women and dragged into bed. The rest can suffer an eternity on Styx’s banks.

I curse myself for a fool and make to back away from the gathered contingent, but feel a chest at my back.

“Slave girl,” he says, spinning me around to face unrefined material and an unwashed chest. I wince at the smell. “Fetch us some more wine and hurry up about it.”

He is drunk or a fool to touch me thus. Judging from the reek of his breath, I would say the former.

I want to sneer that he ought to go get it himself, but quiet defiance is the safest, wisest choice. We quickly learned the value of stillness, much like the posture one would adopt before a rabid dog. I brush his hands from my upper arms like flies and raise my chin, strutting away to the beach, the more secluded part of the encampment. The fool catches my arm again and pushes me back towards the more heavily grouped contingents and their tents. Heads start to snap our way, a few shaking but their mouths saying nothing.

“Wine is that way, girl.”

I narrow my eyes at him, noting his youth, his unscarred face and smooth armour. I wonder how many days ago this fresh meat came to this gods-forgotten country. “You have no idea how things work here, so I suggest you let me go before you lose that hand.”

By the pain flaring in my wrist, I know I am about to receive a blow. Achilles has never hit me, which is more than I can say for what he will do to this fool when I bare my bruises to my captor. Still, I flinch when his arm raises.

I hear the sound of flesh colliding hard with flesh, but I do not feel it. I wince my eyes open and take a wide step backwards, a grim smirk cut onto my face as I watch the young, black-haired King of Argos twist the soldier’s arm behind his back without strain.

“Bastard!” He calls out.

“Now, now,” Diomedes, master of the battle cry, admonishes, adding another bout of pressure that has the man writhing. “That is no way to treat a woman. Especially _that_ woman.” He gives me a roguish wink only he could muster at me, Achilles’ Bride. This man had enough cheek to challenge a god. “What do you think, Lady Briseis? Shall I punish him for you?”

“Oh, yes.” I cross my arms and level out a thoughtful hum. “What do you think, King?” I watch as the soldier’s eyes go wide with terror at the title, previously indignant. I think perhaps I am going too far, but boundaries and customs are made of mercury to these warriors, not iron. Besides, when will I ever have a king to do my bloody work again? “Shall we boil his offending hand in oil? Or perhaps rip the fingernails from his flesh?”

“I could break his arm.” He gives another twist to prove it. “But I do not think swift-footed _Achilles_ would admire me for stealing the pleasure.”

I give an exaggerated nod, a smile spreading across my face like melted butter does a pan as I suggest, “Let us go and ask him. My husband will know what to do.”

The penny that had been pushed from the edge finally collides with the floor and suddenly the tears are from fear. “Please! I did not know! I did not know!”

The Argive king gives me an asking look and, I will admit without shame for once, it took me a moment longer than normal to give a merciful shake of my head.

“You are lucky she is sweet-tempered tonight,” he hissed into his ear, “for I am not.”

Diomedes shoves him away, kicking him back to the contingent. Most of the men laugh good-naturedly, too caught in the present roar of life to sacrifice a moment to grimness. Every night before battle is a funeral feast. The soldier’s companions scowl and I am very glad Diomedes blocks the view and tells me that he will accompany me to the beach. I lead the way and the King of Argos trails behind me.

“I thought you would be with Achilles.”

“I wanted to go to the sea.” I am more eager now than ever with a fresh hand-print on my skin.

I feel rather than sees the questioning look he gives me, but he must have shrugged it off. “You are a clever woman, Briseis. You know better than to loiter around… those parts.”

I think about pushing him to explain about ‘those parts’, to see what he really thinks of those swine-sons of Atreus, but the thread of my thoughts catches. I stop, now on the farthest of the contingents and turn, head cocked to the side. “Who told you that I was clever?”

His dark brows lift in a bright expression that lightens his entire face, nicked and crossed with a few scars, lucky blows from unlucky Trojans now no more than dust. “Your Achilles did.”

This is a first. My eyebrows raise and resume my pace. “Oh, did he now?”

His long legs keep up easily with my strides. “He really is very proud of you, boasting of all your accomplishments when he gets drunk.”

“Achilles is also very proud of his horses,” flatly I reply.

Diomedes nods and gives his chin a thoughtful rub. His black whiskers need shaving. “True. But I think he likes your company much better.”

I debate telling him the reason for my little walk, but curiosity gets the better of me as we come closer to the Argive contingent. “You should not let your men become so drunk before battle.”

I have to leap over a collection of passed out bodies. Empty cups and deep purple patches litter the sand, unnervingly like blood and spoils. It is like a mock battlefield, though I know the foe in the morning will be a monstrous hangover. Dionysus reigns triumphant here.

“We are not going to battle tomorrow.”

He offers me his hand to step over another body, but I pretend I do not see it. I do not wish for rumours to spread about me. Too many men find silly reasons to blame women for their wars and strife.

“How come?” I ask, ever closer to the sea. I feel the wind more strongly here now and the urge to run builds in my feet.

Diomedes tucks his hand at his side, not one easily offended, though the hardness of his tone suggests someone has surpassed even his patience. “Agamemnon ordered us to stay behind.”

It makes sense. Diomedes, though youngest of all the Greek kings, had the second largest contingent and was more experienced than even Achilles, having laid successful siege to Seven-Gated Thebes before he turned twenty with the rest of the Epigone. As a warrior, his rank rose and fell with the tide of war. As a leader, only numbers had snagged Agamemnon’s throne as chief invader and brute. Holding him back gave everyone else a chance to earn glory.

I make a noise through my teeth. “How magnanimous of him. Are you angry?”

He smiles. Concentrating, I frown.

I think Diomedes smiles too much for the lot life has thrown at him. Achilles, ever-frowning and lamenting on his lyre, is much more suited to his fate. Odysseus hunches beneath it and busies his hands so as not to dwell on the weight of it. The Argive smiles now, the mask easily voiding his face of opinion. “He is a king and the camp must be protected, lest the Trojan’s try their luck. Which they won’t.”

No, they will not. Priam, though good king he once was, seems rather content to rot behind his walls along with all his cursed and wretched sons. Why do they not just storm the beach? Why do they not rescue and liberate us? If we must play the damsels in distress, they could at least be our saviours.

I dodge around a pile of fuming puke. “At least your men will not have to face death tomorrow.”

He nods, unreadable smile still on his well-shaped lips, extending the lines that bracket his mouth. “Yes. There is that small fortune at least.”

The small stretch of uninhabited beach is not far now. It is a mere sliver unoccupied by the bullying Greek ships, but it offers a soothing sort of comfort still, like a balm or a lullaby. It is void of bathing Greeks and drunks. If I covered one half of my face and blocked my own view, I could pretend the ships were not here on this tiny stretch of beach, uninhabited by the thousand face-launched vessels. Diomedes comes to my side.

“I am glad you are not going tomorrow.” My, my. My lips cannot seem to keep shut tonight.

Diomedes snorts. “I’m not. How will I ever win glory when Agamemnon keeps holding my men and I back?”

I turn and look at him. He seems so young. Younger than even Achilles. And yet he has fought for much more of his life, a father’s revenge laying heavily on his shoulders since he was four, destined for a Theban glory or a Theban demise, like Tydeus. He bares the scares of it to. I see them peaking from his fine tunic, evidence of such an unfair life. Still, I cannot find it in me to pity him. We are merely the cliff and the waves that slam into it. It is our lot in life.

“Is there not another way to win glory?” I ask, genuinely puzzled by how much value lies in the word.

He laughs at me. “Ask Achilles to explain it to you.”

Now it is my turn to laugh, though it is ice to his fire. “You would have more chance of Paris giving up Helen.”

“Now, wouldn’t that solve all our problems?”

 _Not really_ , I think, but the sea is so close now so what I say is, “You can leave me be now. I can walk from here.”

He stops, smile faltering on his face. “I am sorry. I did not mean to offend you.”

Small as it is, the apology is genuine. It is nothing more than a pebble tossed into a ravine, but I hear it hit the bottom of myself. Why did a war ever have to cleave me apart? Make me a liar, lover, whore and traitor?

I am not sure which of those epithets speaks next, but I hear my own voice, weak and brittle. “I am glad you are not fighting tomorrow, King Diomedes, because it makes it easier for me not to hate you. You should go now.”

He looks genuinely surprised and to be honest, so am I.

“You are an odd one, Briseis.”

By now, the sea swashes up to my heels, cool and soothing. I hike up my dress a bit and wade a little further, digging my toes into the sand. “How so?”

“To care for wretches such as us. You must think of us as wretches.”

The waves slosh cool against my shins. I wade deeper, sea water up to my groin.

“I don’t care about you. I am just tired of hatred and I wish I could go home. Go to bed, King Diomedes.”

I expected him to leave for all sorts of reasons I would not know, the obvious one being that I wanted to balm of the sea on my own, which came just below my breasts now.

“To Lynnersus?”

I was surprised he remembered the name of my tiny kingdom, as far away as the speck of dawn on the horizon. I keep wading, hair floating around me like coils of strangling, black silk. Even more now, I will him to go away. I do not want him to witness my ritual.

“Briseis,” the man says.

“I do not know.” As I say it, I taste salt on my lower lip. I feel lighter and begin to bob. “What will you do, King Diomedes, when there are no more Troys left to burn?”

His answer is so immediate I cannot tell if it reveals more honesty or deceit. I do not care. “I will go home to my wife and Argos.”

“Will you forget all of us Trojans who fell and wept? Or will you remember?”

I know the confusion in his voice is true. I hoped it would be tinged with guilt, as stained as his hands. “What do you mean?”

“It does not matter,” I reply, turning to give my most winning smile. “Goodnight and thank you for defending me.”

Rubbing the back of his head with almost boyish charm, he gives a smile that crinkles his eyes and says, “It was nothing, really. Goodnight, Briseis.”

I watch his back for a little while as it disappears into a crowd distracted by drink, lust and fear. I wonder if he would have done the same for another woman, had I not been Achilles’. I am not sure whether I smile or grimace as a rather poetic thought pops into my head: I am the River Acheron, doomed forever to always flow back into the sea that is Achilles. But for now, the sea is mine and it is time for the test.

I go all the way under, water intruding my nose, blackening my vision. With even the air expelled from my lungs, I feel as though I have left everything on the surface. I am heavier than all my trivial woes and they float spitefully to join the foam while I remain on the shallow sea bed, blind save for the white glimmering disc above, the wobbly circle indicating the moon. Deep in the sand, I let my feelings for Achilles bleed out of me, whatever they may be.

Now I wait. Under the water, the sea carries away my tears so I do not have to wear them above. I let out the confusion and the woe, the anger and resentment. I let myself become my body and soul only, nameless below. Still I wait.

Death’s call is as quiet and strong as the sound of water. It is soothing, potent and smooth.

Life is crueller. Life makes you want it. It was Life who dragged me back to break the water.

I break the surface and whip my head back, throwing open my mouth to take as deep a breath as I wanted. It is sick and wrong, I know, to test myself like this. But I cannot help it. I am pulled like a toy on a string towards the waters.

Diomedes was above me, half-submerged in the sea as if he wanted to save me. The thought almost makes me laugh or smile but my cheeks are too heavy and I am too surprised. His jaw hangs a little low. Perhaps for a moment I reminded him of his wife or mother and I suddenly had more value.

I wade past without looking at him, coming onto the surf with the water still calling for me and my clothes sticking. I feel cleaner and renewed in my will to live, even if my mind cannot fathom why. Both my body and soul have chosen existence. My only regret is the witness wading behind me.

I hear splashing and he is at my side, taking me by the shoulders. “Briseis! You stupid”-

I burst out into laughter, as if a god has reached down to touch my ribs and draw it out, making my face lighter. I swat his hands away, quickly growing limp with giggling or sobbing for some stupid reason. I think maybe it is the shock on his face, hazel eyes wide and body dripping. Maybe it is the situation from a gods’ eye view: a Greek king rescuing a Trojan slave girl, sillier than a lion rescuing a lamb.

“This is not funny!” He snaps and my laughter dies to an odd sort of smile.

“Why do you care?” Defiant, I meet his eyes, which waver with an emotion I cannot name. I watch whatever argument he could have formed die in his gaze. I step away from him and begin walking. “I thought so. Go home, Argive, and leave Troy to the Gods.”

He does not follow me.


	2. The Argive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buenos noches readers, of which there are probably about three of you. Eh. I'm writing for myself to be honest. As you've probably guessed, this is Briseis centric with a hint of Diomedes. Briomedes? Diseis? Moving on. I know what you're thinking: what a crack ship. Well, you're right. It makes no sense at all. None. Zilch. But I'm not writing an essay. I'm writing a character study that happens to be a story and my perceptions of these two characters and the way I have built them in my mind makes them fit. You might be fonder of good ol' Achilles and Briseis. Whatever floats your boat. But I think Briseis would be more complex than what the film Troy- I shudder at the inaccuracies (she says with all her spelling errors) -and it would be pretty damn hard to love a guy that murdered your loved ones, but also hard not to feel something in the situation. Throwing in a modern woman's twist of (hopefully) female character development and hopefully you can see my aim of creating a more dynamic Briseis who does not glorify Achilles as a lover. In summary, I hate stockholme-syndrome to lurve stories. Enjoy my train wreck if you can. Ta ta my triad of readers.

I feel like wave-smoothed sand as I return, completely avoiding the Spartans and Mycenaeans, curving around the Ajaxes, past the Ithacans and Myrmidons. Oblivious and pinked with drink, Patroclus waves me a goodnight and I wave back with a salt-crusted hand. Semele is sound asleep, body wrapped around one of the younger girls in a matronly way. I give her another kiss on the cheek before stripping my sodden clothes. I even sneak a few grapes before preparing for bed.

Achilles was truly asleep when I slipped in beside him again. I dry myself off as best I can. Salt-scented, I lay down in bed and his arm curls instinctively around me. He gives me a sleepy kiss which sends a tingle down my spine where the rest of my passion lies dormant for him. I have lust aplenty and if the gods had intended us all to be chaste, then they should not have laid such a paradise as this between our legs. His touch is warm and cosy, like a hot broth when one is ill. The contact, so contrary to the cooling sea, is completely, electrically alive.

I chose this again. I close my eyes, breathing deeply.

My sleep is black and dreamless, though I find my last thought is that I hope Diomedes is a keeper of his own council. I push the thought back far enough I know it will hit me with force in the morning.

I awoke in a daze of the sounds of arming, so I knew it was not long after dawn. He always armed himself, save for minor adjustments made by Patroclus later. He was not quiet, impossible for a man so used to making his presence known, but I think he always tried not to wake me, so I humoured him by pretending to sleep. I have always done this.

I do not think I would know what to say to him before battle. It feels like a half-lie to say “Die” and just as much so to beg him to come back. Even as he pulls my dark hair back and plants a rough kiss on my tanned cheek, I keep up my façade, though it feels nice, something I can imagine Hector doing to Andromache right at this moment. It also feels like I suddenly have to wash it off.

“Ready to go?” I hear Patroclus say, voice soft enough not to wake me or the other slaves.

I feel fingers lightly on my cheek once more before he rumbles back an efficient, “Ready.”

Patroclus gives a light chuckle. “Oh, no you’re not. You never get that buckle.” I hear him step into the room to make a minor adjustment, saying a satisfied, “There.”

“Thank you,” I hear Achilles say with a different kind of tenderness, one that fills the space with a warmth and makes me wish I was not there. Suddenly, in that moment, I am a voyeur on something powerful. They exit together and I can draw breath.

Throughout the years, people would come to ask what the relationship between these two men was. All I can say is that it was the only love I was ever certain of here.

I rise when I hear the marching of feet dissipate and the sound of sails fade. Water-breaking hulls cease to reach my ears and so I rise, bathe until all the salt is gone and dress in a garment Achilles stole. Rich and blue and not at all meant for me. My hair, as usual, I leave unveiled and down. There is no point in maintaining my modesty with pins now. No one here is a lady.

Semele does the same and we start making breakfast together, falling into an easy conversation about a hard topic.

“We’ll be adding some new girls to the ranks soon, eh?” She says, stirring the little cauldron that will feed myself and the several others tasked with keeping the hut orderly. There is no cheer in her voice, just declaration and resignation. We could have been talking about the weather. “Where are they sailing?”

“Up the coast to the Temple of Apollo. Do you remember Chryses?”

Semele, not born a noble like I, had not had the fortune to meet such a prominent man and so she said no. I had due to my class, but such a thing was inconsequential now. Anything that kills is my enemy. Anything that suffers is my friend. How agony has united us. I tell her the story.

When I was very little, my father and family had attended a great feast at Priam’s table. I remember fruits from places I could not pronounce, exotic birds served on platters as if they were as common as chickens and a thousand different fabrics in a hundred other shades. I even remember glimpsing Hector and Andromache, then newlyweds, sneaking off behind a pillar to do things my mother said I would understand when I was older. I even remember Paris, who was in fact a pimply youth, not quite grown into his lanky good looks and fine clothes.

Chryses had been seated next to my father, a great honour, and as he held me in his lap, I watched the gold flashing around the old priest’s neck. Bewitched, I reached out to touch whatever was carved there, wanting to figure it out for myself, but my father slapped my hand down. The priest of Apollo laughed and told him it was quite alright, taking the necklace off to show me a mouse carved with a bursting sun. The sun I understood, the mouse I did not.

_“Why, Apollo is a god of plague, my girl. Best to always appease him.”_

I prayed to all the vilest versions of the gods on the first few nights here. I prayed for Apollo to strike them down with a plague. I begged Dionysus to make them all go mad and rip each other apart like the maenads did Pentheus. I prayed for Artemis to match their faces to their souls and make beast out of men, bears out of the sons of Atreus, a snake out of Odysseus, an ass out of Nestor, but the only face I could conjure for Achilles was his own. He was animal enough to me. I do not pray as much as I used to, though I find myself hoping Apollo has not forgotten the man so faithful to him.

“I’ve only ever heard of him I think,” Semele replies as I hand her a bowl of thick, honeyed porridge. Achilles’ women are fed well. “They will leave the priest be if they know what is good for them.”

My brows lift doubtfully at her.

“Yes, you’re right. Not that they ever do.”

I stretch myself languorously. “What do you fancy doing today?”

She flashes me a grin. “Lazing. I shall be as idle as a lion with a pride of lionesses.”

I think sometimes she must be touched by some god for she does the impossible. She draws a little laugh from me, even when my guts feel like they are in knots. Not the mad kind I threw at Diomedes nor the heavy, guilty kind that tastes bad in my mouth when Patroclus tickles my humour.

She cocks her head at me, still smiling, but more softly. “You kissed me twice last night. I did not dream it. Why were you out so late?”

“I was so sweaty, so I went to bathe in the sea.” Her eyes move towards the ever full pitcher in the corner and I step on my back foot. “Is that a sin?”

“It could be if Achilles’ decides it is.” Her voice levels out with seriousness and depth.

I wave that worry away. “All he will do is confine me at worse. It will be just like old times at the palace.”

Before coming to the camp, I had seen little beyond the walls of the other men that governed my life: my father and my husband. “At least they let us wonder like the dogs.”

We grin despite ourselves because the only other option is to weep. I am nineteen now, Semele twenty, both to old and worn for tears.

“Please stop bathing in the sea. I worry about you.”

I give her a low jawed look. “I am not suicidal. I am just… cleansing myself.”

Semele sat up straighter, a fierce cut to her pretty face. She holds herself with queenly dignity, the kind I never mastered fully. “If I ever have to tend your corpse, Briseis, beaten or drowned, I will strangle you myself in Hades!”

I can imagine, though I do not promise her when she begs I stop my trips to the beach. “It is only every now and then and it is nothing serious. More of an ablution than anything. I always feel better afterwards.”

It is as if everything is turned inside out, scrubbed, sewn back up and reversed again.

Her eyes bulge then narrow. “You are sick. Mad.”

I shrug, defenceless against the declarative and make to gobble my breakfast before I face the Argive King. I decide to leave that detail out of my retelling of my midnight ablutions. Semele has enough to worry about, being guardian to the gaggle of girl-children that cling to her heels like a mother goose.

I think that without her, without all the women here, I would not have my own face. To men, I am a body. But I can fall into a Semele’s arms on hard nights and be a daughter. I can dance with my friends and be a sister. I can hold a young girl and be a mother. All around me are women with a thousand faces who let me have a thousand to. Poor Helen, to be known to so many with one face: the Beautiful Slut.

I bet she must weep a lot.

When I open the hut flaps, I find the beach nakedly bare of ships and men, save for those of Diomedes. For a moment, I could have pretended that the Greeks had fled and left Troy to the gods, as I had advised the Argive to do and as I wanted Patroclus to do. But my worry would be a reminder if the mock-battle cries were not. Deep inside, my guts tie themselves into another knot.

I hope he has not spoken to Achilles. I would not put it past him to restrict my movements or to have a Myrmidon become my shadow. I hope more fervently Diomedes has kept silent. There is only one way to find out.

Void of men, I easily navigate the beach, merely having to avoid littered chicken bones and puddles of every human-made liquid. Nearer the water is a cleaner path, but I do not think that will leave the best impression on the Argive, so I watch where my sandaled feet lay. I hear its call so much louder now though I have chosen life and my conscience is satisfied with the sacrifice of my time for now. Without the garrulous bleating of soldiers stiff with boredom and testosterone, the waves sound so close I feel them on my skin, but it has no power over me. For now, it all lies on the ocean floor, rotting. The seagulls swoop close for scraps, cawing. The scent of acrid sweat and anticipation gives way to clear salt air. The beach looks so deserted I would be surprised if the Trojans did not come to reclaim it.

But there, like spilt paint marring the rest of the portrait, blotches of Argives black in the distance. Aside from that, the Greeks have left an overwhelming scar in the land, gouging a memory that will burn for thousands of years. It is impossible to ignore the burial mounds _not_ dedicated to fallen Trojans or the erected huts, like skeletons without flesh when their masters were away. Of course, there were women, milling about like bees to make honey for the bears. They went about the routine of their lives, the monotony of womanhood: sewing, cooking, cleaning, weaving and every task in between. It is no wonder the Greeks hardly ever seem to miss their mothers when they have a stolen army of them at their beck and call. Others lie in shade or seek comfort in drink.

I spot a couple together beneath a cropped up piece of cloth, silent save for the language of their bodies. Their hands were clasped so tightly together, as if not even Zeus could pluck them apart in a wrath. The pair strikes me deeply in the heart.

I never loved Mynes, arranged as it was and I will never love Achilles, stolen as I was. I have had a wedding and a half, yet never found love. I could not find it here if I wanted, so marred would such a love be by shame. But those two women, silent and loud in their love all at once, have triumphed over that, defied the hate like miasma. Aphrodite still seems to favour the Trojans, though she neglects my heart often.

Aphrodite herself is a coin, one I would rather toss into a deep, deep well than keep in my purse. For a goddess of love, she is so callous and cruel. The tale of Eros and Psyche, Love and Soul, was a favourite of mine as a little girl. I foolishly imagined being the lover of a god only to be half wife to half a god. But Aphrodite was a terror in it. Bullying and testing and screeching when it did not go her way. Even hate pollutes love. It is to Eros and Psyche that I send a prayer when I ask that the two lovers on the beach never be parted, their hands eternally clasped.

Diomedes is seeing his men through various exercises, with armour on, and so I go and make myself un-idle, knowing from Achilles’ rigorous training he will be a while. I go to a collection of girls, bored without work to do for men, seemingly so used to being told what to do they could craft no entertainment for themselves. This is horrifying in itself for me. They do not speak, but sit with their eyes on the sea, their minds on home and knees tucked to their chins. I clap to get their attention and several heads of Trojan dark hair lift. They are all within a range of twelve to fifteen, not far from my age when I was taken. They recognise me and stand from their circle.

“Come on, girls! Let’s show some initiative.”

Eudokia, the eldest at fifteen, frowns. She bares a bruises on her wrists and I know exactly what that means. It is an effort not to punch something, to keep the aching smile on my face. “But there’s nothing to do. The soldiers are gone and we did all of our chores this morning.”

I smile and roll my eyes. “I did not mean work. I say, we have some fun. Perhaps I could teach you some Trojan dances”-

They all give a collective moan and Phoebe, twelve, says, “It’s too hot.”

I nearly suggest a swim, but falter. “I know some tales. I’m not a professional poet, but”-

“Boring.”

Frowning, I put my hands on my hips and add, “Well, anything is better than sitting around with faces like Hades in spring!”

Some gasp, some giggle.

“You should not speak of the gods so,” admonishes Althea, taken from a temple of Artemis.

Perhaps I should not, but I see a thread and like a child, cannot resist pulling until the entire thing unravels around me. Maybe if I act daft and childish, they will become infected with it. “Even the gods have a sense of humour. Have you not heard of Dionysus?”

This time, there were more giggles than gasps. Even Althea presses her lips. I keep pulling the thread, careless as a kitten.

“Why, Achilles told me once how Thetis herself had a tongue as sharp as a clam’s edge.” I then tell them the story of how, as a child, a poet came to the palace of Peleus. This was a happy and rare time for Achilles. Thetis had not left then and he was immensely drunk before he revealed this to me, the battle that day greatly rewarding. The problem was, and I remember him laughing, that the poet was poor, so his mother kept interrupting him to correct his history. I put on my best, grouchy, old man voice to re-enact his reply. “’You may be sea-blessed, goddess, but I am Muse blessed’, he said- to a goddess! ‘Let me get on with my tale.’ Well, you can imagine she was none too happy and fumed and foamed like her domain. And he did not stop there! ‘What do you know of storytelling? Can you conjure worlds with words as I do? Pluck a simile from the air and make man like god? No, I doubt you can.’ He was about to go back to his story, when Thetis cut in, ‘I know how to keep a fool about to be executed in agonised suspense.’ To which the idiot replied, ‘How?’” I pause to let my own tension build. “And then she went to bed.”

I earn a few huffs, scoffs and, “I don’t get it’s”. I roll my eyes, about to give up, when Althea asks, “Do you have any funny stories about Achilles?”

“Not many.” He is moved quicker to sharpness than smirking when laughed at, but I feel my face brighten with memory as I say, “But one time, he and Patroclus got so drunk they stole Nestor’s chariot…”

And so began a long morning of me drawing laughter from these girls like water from a deep, deep well, as Semele did for myself. I realised only now how much I had seen of these men, how closely I had watched the scenes that would be neglected in an epic.

I told them of the time Agamemnon fell face first into a pile of horse-dung, slipping on the blood of a sacrificed Trojan bull. It is a roaring winner amongst my audience. It was a particular favourite of mine and a memory I dredged up like a battered shield in his presence, for he came to Achilles’ tent for wine and talk sometimes. Tense talk. Mostly about how he felt he was not respected, interspersed with heated glances at me or the odd brush of his hand against my backside. Achilles always just sat there like a wolf in the woods, like nothing in the world could get on its feet and bare its teeth quicker than he could. Still, he gnashed his jaw and waited until Agamemnon left to spew his menacing bile until he went red. Only Patroclus knew the right tone and words to calm his rage.

I bring up that memory to remind myself that Agamemnon is fallible, as capable as falling as any of us, though I wonder if anything human ever calls out from his soul when he sees girls as young as these. If any of their faces remind him of Iphigenia, the girl who brought the wind. That was another story Achilles told me. I do not think I will forget how he wept, feeling somehow responsible for being unknowingly involved in the deception. Then came the anger, the hissed name of _Agamemnon_.

I move quickly onto Menelaus and the time he lost a bet to Odysseus in an archery contest and had to run around the entire camp naked. Menelaus was proud of his body and good natured, more so than his brother, willing to take a punishment and flash his manhood to any passer-by. Only, Nestor was a late sleeper, so when he stepped out of his tent that morning as I passed and saw Menelaus in all his naked glory, the poor fool nearly had a heart attack! Around me, they burst into smiles and it is as if we are not discussing our captors or kin-slayers, but silly brothers or relatives. Their reddened faces clash with their white teeth and I feel the expression on my face is as warm as the sun.

I mimic Machaon’s snobbish tone, I mock Thersites’ hacking one, double checking over my shoulder to make sure he would not here me. Lame of leg though he was, he had power in his arm and the blood of Diomedes to protect him when his tongue went unchecked. I turn back, cheeks aching with grinning.

Here, I am Briseis the Hopeful. The woman who promises the war will end soon, that they will go to their wedding beds maids. The once-queen who will bring them all to her palace in Lyrnessus when it is all over and guard them from the world of men. I hate this face to. Her other name is Briseis the Liar. I wear the liar’s lips as I continue.

“Oh, gods! How could I forget about Diomedes and the bee-hive incident?” I laugh already thinking about it, not feeling the shadow at my back, nor noticing the girls grow grave in front of me. “Only the Goddess knows why, but for some reason, he is favoured by Athena. You will notice he always dedicates his spoils to her, though she did not bless him with any common, bloody sense if this is what he did!” I am snorting now, eyes crinkled with pleasure. “It was coming up to the Festival of Athena, and so the Greeks were struggling as to what should be dedicated to her again. In the midst of the assembly, he gets up, smiles that smug little smile of his- you know the one, he thinks he’s so handsome- and goes off to the plains of Troy. An hour later, he comes back,” here, I hold an imaginary bee hive, “ _screaming_ like a goat with a bee-hive and a swarm behind him, running like his arse was on fire!”

“It was,” the Argive says behind me and, tan as I am, I blanch.

I hope the smile on my face as I turn around is contrite enough to redeem me. He raises a single eyebrow and I am praying he is in a sweeter temper today than he was last night. Even now, he wears that illegible smile. He crouches down and I see a rivulet of sweat drip down the back of his neck as he says to the girls with that very smile I had just described.

“There I was, hive in hand and an a _gony_ like the flames of Hephaestus scorching my arse!” Only two brave girls laugh, once and shortly. The rest look like does with arrows trained on them. “I dropped the hive on the altar and just kept on running. By the gods, I dove into the sea quicker than if I had been borne in a chariot.”

I make an attempt to giggle, to resurrect the mood, but around me the girls have petrified. The cat has walked in on the council of mice.

“Well, that’s enough tales for one day I think! I’ll leave you to it then. Goodbye, girls.” I rise, deftly brushing myself off as I do and giving Diomedes a look that means it is time to leave. I go and he awkwardly follows, giving an odd little wave to the girls as he does, smiling well naturedly. Each of my charges suddenly finds the sand or their sandals interesting.

“They hate me, don’t they?” He says as we walk towards where his men had been training earlier, their practiced battle cried near drowning my tales. They had all dissipated now, occupying the stretch of sea that was usually obscured by the black ships, bathing. Thersites watches us as we walk.

I debate holding my tongue, but I think I can get away with it, so I tell him the truth. “You cannot expect them to love you for invading their country and killing their loved ones. You cannot expect them to smile at their captors.”

Uncharacteristically contemplative, Diomedes rubs his jaw, still stubbly. “Do you not smile for Achilles? Do you not love him as a woman loves a man?”

“No,” I answer and it is the truth. I do not love him. I love him as a mortal loves a god, with awe and acceptance at the incomprehensible and the constant fear I will be smote. I do not love him as a man because it is not possible. “And he does not love me.”

Dark brows lift. “He would be sad to hear that. He does adore to be adored.”

 _As do you_ , I nearly say, but I think that is too far.

“I suppose you did not come to speak the minds of your fellow women this time, Briseis. We are to have words, aren’t we?”

“Did you tell him about last night?” I blurt it out too quickly to be casual and I feel I must gain back my edge immediately within the conversation.

Carefully, lips tense this time, he asks, “And what was last night?”

I am still wearing the liar’s mouth. “A Trojan tradition. Before praying to sea gods, we always wash in the ocean to ensure our bodies are pure and connected, the perfect conduits for prayers. I pray for Achilles. Do you not do this in Greece?” The question is pointed and my edge is back.

Part of me would not be surprised if he said no, barbaric as they are. They only seemed to recall gods when they needed to strengthen their spear arm or give thanks for stolen spoils. Right now I am praying he has spared me Achilles’ questioning.

For a moment, I do not think I will get away with it because his look is so hard and long, bronze-eyes squinted in concentration. I swore I could see a goddess whispering in his ear. “I did not tell Achilles. Though I think he would believe you if you told him… Do you perform your ritual a lot?”

My own lips tighten and I realise the game we are playing. “As much as my husband goes to battle.”

He gives a thoughtful hum, sweaty, scarred hands clasped behind his back like and Athenian scholar. He ought to be bathing with his men right now by the sweat on him but he shows no discomfort as he converses. “I always feel the best prayer is vocal. To speak about problems in order to solve them.”

I cannot stop myself. I scoff. “The only people who could solve my problems would be the gods, whose agendas dwarf mine. To ask them to grant my wishes is to ask Ares for peace.”

He frowns. “What?”

I roll my eyes and give an irritated sigh. “Talking will not help me. Those that make my woes are… creatures of action.”

The dumb look he gives me frustrates me so much I wave him off. “Never mind. I have some weaving to catch up on.”

I make to leave, content to smooth things over I have in the three weeks of Achilles’ absence. Besides, I want to enjoy the peace while I can. He grabs my arm as I turn, but then drops it when I level a hot look at him, looking boyish and ashamed, as if I was his mother and had scolded him.

“Look, Briseis, forget this double-talk, I’m no good at it. I do not possess Odysseus’ silver tongue nor Nestor’s talent for anecdotes. My point is that if you talk to someone you will feel better.”

“Who am I supposed to talk to? You?” My words cut as they intend and I am glad. What did he know of the shame of feelings? All men ever did was indulge in them while we women have to repress and suppress lest we be held accountable for any folly. I only trusted Semele’s judgement, for she was sound and scolding, the right balance to keep me walking in a morning. His head drops and it is the first time I see something like honesty on his countenance. “Patroclus is a good listener. Odysseus gives sound council and if you have the patience for him, Nestor always makes sense.”

“And each would tattle about the poor slave-girl’s suicidal thoughts to noble Achilles,” I mimp back, spinning once more to leave and head back to my charges.

“I would not,” he says quietly. I stop.

As mercurial as I am, these Greeks are worse. Slaying our men one moment and capable of voicing nought but battle cries that would bring you to your knees with trembling. Seducing our women with sweet words and soft looks so becoming and true you could fall in love. Diomedes wears such a face now and I want to claw it off. My nails have long since been worried to shrubs, so I reach for my next best weapon.

“I do not want your advice or your… kindness. They mean nothing to me while I am not free. How can the hawk advise the hare it hunts?” It is as good as asking the snake that bit you for an antidote. That’s exactly what Diomedes is: a viper, one who makes a good show of looking like a kicked dog scolded by a loving master. I resume a rapid pace, eager for distance to be put between us.

Strong in clarity, he calls after me, though does not follow with his feet. “I will keep your secrets, Briseis. But I shall also be keeping an eye on you.”

 _Then I shall claw it out,_ I think but storm off. My tongue has betrayed me too much this afternoon and the day is hotter now.

 

…

 

“You did _not_ say that to him, did you?” Jaw low, Semele levels a wide-eyed look at me that has me wriggling where I sit on the blanket. We are close to the steps of Achilles’ hut and all around us women are busy: tending fires, chopping ingredients, mixing wine or stirring the cauldron of broth as I do.

Since my conversation this morning, I had spent the rest of the day wandering, checking the conditions of the women’s huts, making sure food and other supplies were dished out evenly. I was also surveying a destination for a new women’s hut in preparation for the new slaves on the horizon. I had only just sat down this evening on the steps of the hut, having lost myself in work. Tomorrow, I intended on repairing one of the roofs of the women’s communes, the women to busy and the men to idle to do it themselves.

Without shame, I nod. One of Patroclus’ dogs sits between my legs and I run my fingers through his fur repeatedly in long strokes. The action soothes me as much as the panting hound.

“At least you were honest.”

I nod again, still boiling inside. Talk to someone! Ha! As if I did not have a hundred ears to listen and mouths to explain. Everyone around me is suffering and not a damn one of us can do anything about it. My day only grew worse when Eudokia came up to me asking for certain herbs. The kind that make sure a girl does not become a mother. I tried to fold her into me as if I could keep her in my heart, safe forever, but she stood with her fists at her sides and as rigid as a statue. She told me she had cried all her tears.

Even now, I am thinking of ways to persuade Achilles to buy her from Nestor. _She is a fantastic weaver!_ or maybe _An excellent cook!_

“Do you reckon he’ll snap?”

I cross my arms and take a moment to stop and think. The action seems so simple, so easy. If we all just took the time to do it more, how much better the world would be. “No. He’s a sanctimonious, sentimental fool and he thinks he’ll be doing right by me by keeping it to himself. If he thinks it’s noble, he’ll do it for his honour, not mine. I do not think I have to worry.”

Semele agrees with me and ladles some stew into a bowl. She sprinkles hers generously with herbs I recognise all to well. I raise my brows at her in question, not judgement. She smiles cheekily. “You know me, Briseis. I’ll take what pleasures I can get in this life.”

A clink my full bowl against hers. “Wise words for a wise woman.”

“Here, here.” She drains hers quickly, wincing at the herbs I know to be dread bitter. Then she helps herself to another bowl, a luxury since there is now enough to go around for seconds.

I share a little of the meat with my canine companion and kiss him on the head, content with the sun on my cheeks, the wind on my face and the ocean glistening before me. All my woes lay on its sandy bed for now and I am as content as I can be, anger gone with time. I tell myself I will sort it out tomorrow. I have three weeks and enough wit to sort it out in one.

“I do agree with Diomedes about one thing though,” Semele says, not so out of the blue. She reaches over to my free palm, taking it away from the dog’s fur as she links her fingers with mine. “Talk to me more. This obsession with the sea… it’s not healthy.”

“I am _not_ trying to kill myself. I just feel better afterwards. _I’ll take what pleasures I can get in this life_.”

Anything but a hypocrite, Semele presses her lips closed and the argument is settled, though the mood is jagged.

“It’s so quiet for once.” Her voice is the same. She leans back on the steps and sets her bowl aside, linking her fingers over her stomach. “What would you do if they really did all vanish?”

I am not exactly sure what emotion it is that slams into me at that moment. All I know is that the feeling feels like a shield. “But they won’t.”

Temper thinning, she tuts. “Imagine, Briseis.”

“ _But they won’t.”_

With a wave I think is exaggerated, she gets up and huffs. “Forget it.”

I stay out until the sun sets and I grow cold, my only warmth from the dog in front of me. All the slaves not in the communal huts go to the houses of their masters. I eye the sea warily.

_Forget. Forget?_

I do not forget. I am to be forgotten. The least I can do is remember. Remember and think.


	3. Thersites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back. Back again. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon whenever you may be. Guess who got her English Literature Coursework done? If anyone is interested in the Vietnam war or a female perspective of war, as you may be given your interest in a fanfiction about a neglected female perspective of war, then I highly recommend Le Ly Hayslip's When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. I compared it to Karl Marlantes' What It Is Like To Go To War so many aspects of this work are drawn from those. It was very interesting as despite being in the same war, their experiences were so different and so Hayslip ended up being pro-peace while Marlantes wanted to make more ethical warriors and even commented how surprising it was there was so much ritual in the Iliad before concluding the importance of ritual for maintaining the humanity of the enemy, thus the humanity of the warrior. Anyway, enough of the academic yada yada, let's get to some half-arsed fanfiction- yeah! As always, please leave a comment, any comment will do. I find them very entertaining. I am up for all sorts of questions or critiques- don't hold back. And I would also like to ask you, the reader, to have a think for me about this query: if each character of the Iliad could be summarised as a song, what would it be and why? Comment below ladies and gents. Until then, ta ta.

In the morning, I smile at tentatively at Semele. She is quick to return the peace offering and we carry on, the heat of yesterday forgotten. This is how most of our arguments end. We cannot waste time making enemies of each other and are moved quicker to forgiveness than resentment. Nor can we waste time pondering impossibilities. Everything that suffers is my ally.

Which reminds me…

“I’m going to get Achilles to buy Eudokia,” I tell her as I slide a tunic over my head. “The Myrmidon’s are less likely to try anything with Patroclus at every corner. She will be safer.”

Semele contemplates for a moment, frowning. “It will be difficult. Why would he want to _buy_ a new girl when he will be dragging some back as we speak?”

I bat my eyelashes and make a woeful expression, exaggerated as a tragic mask. “Because I said so. It is the least he can do since he _abandoned_ me for another campaign. How _lonely_ I am without him and how sweet the girl was to me.”

Semele’s frown turns appreciative. “You’re cleverer than I give you credit for, but your acting skills need polishing. You will never be cast in a play.”

“Of course not. Women can’t be actors. If I can’t convince him, Patroclus will.”

Semele lets out a sigh heavy with dreams. “Maybe I would not mind the Greeks as much if they were all like Patroclus.”

It is a nice thought, but one that sits oddly within me, like clothes that do not quite fit right. Kind and gentle though he is, I have washed blood from his armour. Still, as I eat, I say a prayer for him in my head.

He is another two-faced coin for my purse. I am not sure whether or not he would have become a warrior, had he the choice, but I would like to think he would have preferred to have stayed at home in Greece. Maybe, in the unknown future. I can picture him quite clearly with land prospering beneath him and a people that died fat and old his to govern. Naturally, Achilles falls into that imagining, at his side and unusually smiling, but I do not.

My absence from that dream is not something I want to contemplate, so I finish my meal in silence, swallowing the thought and smothering it with food.

When Semele leaves to attend to some washing up, I go to get the tools from one of the men’s huts, easily finding nails and a hammer. Planks are a little more difficult to acquire however and I find myself boldly at the Argive ships, which are conveniently being maintained while the space and time are at hand. I make my way to the hull of one with the sounds of scrubbing and hammering emitting from it.

“Hello!” I call up to the sweaty back turned to me, muscles shifting with effort. “Could you do me a favour and spare a few planks?”

The man turns and I scowl unabashedly because I know I can get away with it. Crooked teeth beam down at me as Thersites, cousin of Diomedes and rival of Agamemnon in the art of bastardry, says, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Achilles’ favourite whore. Come looking for a real man, have we?”

I raise my hand to my brow and make an exaggerated show of looking about. “Why, are you hiding one behind you as we speak?”

Around him, other working men laugh. “Feisty one, no?”

“You’re not going to let her talk down to you like that, are you, Thersites?”

I see Thersites’ large hands curl around the ship’s edge as if it were a bird’s neck, but he is still grinning, still has arrows to shoot. His nose is as crooked as his teeth and he is about to demonstrate the reason why. I narrow my eyes and slide my foot back, an instinctual defensive stance.

“Come now, you are much sweeter to my cousin the king.” All of Thersites’ words are barbed, a reason why he’s considered such a _winning_ personality amongst his allies, but that sentence stands out as a particular thorn. Even his own cousin can just about stand him. “ _Prince_ Achilles’ not good enough for you now?”

“Sometimes I do forget you are related,” I jab back quickly, eager to get back to my business and to make other people forget that comment. I will not be dubbed another Helen by fools who put too much stock in rumour. I wave the hammer meaningfully at him. “Enough blabbering. Will you lend me the planks or not?”

I would rather avoid asking Diomedes personally, since his pestering of me has been so noted, and am thinking about stealing some planks from Agamemnon’s undefended hut when Thersites leans over and leers, “Show me your tits and I’ll consider it.”

“My breasts are more valuable than your wood. So much so I would not let you see them if you offered me a hundred oxen, fifty gold tripods and a kingdom.”

“What about your freedom?”

_Yes. In an instant._

Dignity and honour are thin words when compared to that idea. I already whore myself to keep myself alive. If Agamemnon himself came up to me and said, “Bend over just this once and I swear to Zeus himself that you will be free,” I would close my eyes, open my legs and get it over and done with.

But Thersites only has the power of his words, which sting but can do little to last, disdained as he is. Scratches and salt. Still, it is a needle that gets me in just the right place between the ribs, knocks me back just that one inch. My fingers tighten on the hammer

I calculate two things at that moment: the distance and how likely I am to get away with it.

Baring my teeth, I hurl my entire body into the throw and launch the hammer.

Thersites gasps and covers his bald head. I hear a thunk and sink a little, for it was metal on wood, not flesh. I missed. Thersites leans over the ship’s ledge, snarling down at me like a harpy. All around him, guffaws and gasps rise up like vapours.

“You bitch! You could have killed me.”

“Pity I didn’t.”

Somewhere from above, I hear someone say, “Oh, she’s done it now.” I hear it perfectly for they have all stopped and made me a spectacle.

He leaps down from the ship and I am reminded, though ugly, he is tall and still had enough strength to overpower me.

I dodge out of his meaty grip. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

“You’ll pay the price for your temper, girl.”

We always do.

“Then you will pay blood to Achilles,” I spit back.

He lunges for me again, but he always throws all his weight into this and goes sprawling onto the sand. There is more laughter now and this appals me. How can they laugh when he might very well drown me in the surf? The Argives might not be on Thersites’ side, but neither are they on mine, as sure as water is wet.

I turn back to them, willing to use my position in their good graces for the moment.

“Care to spare a plank for me? Just one will do.”

Benevolent and giggling, someone pities me and throws down two. I bow in thanks, but then someone shouts, “Thersites, no!”

It is a strange feeling to be taken off your feet so completely as if smote by Zeus hand. For all of a moment, I am weightless, then his weight falls onto me.

As a girl, when age and gender did not matter, I used to play fight with my brothers. I always lost, but at least I was scrappy. Biting, scratching, kicking and all sorts of other things that appalled my carers. I hated being pinned the most. I resented the binds on my wrists and the pressure of knees on my thighs. It was only ever my brother doing the pinning, but I always felt by then it had gone too far, and I would struggle harder and harder. Their laughs were not funny then. It was not fun at all.

I think all women, child or otherwise, hate being pinned before we even know what it truly means to be pinned and powerless beneath a man.

The only difference between now and then is Thersites knees are not on my legs, they are between them.

“Get off!” I screech, writhing as though his hands burn. They do not scorch, but they bruise. “Get off me!”

He twists the skin of my arms when I try to knee his groin, pushing his lower half into mine so all I can do is buck my knee uselessly. He backhands me twice, the second time busting my lip. He leans in close, breath foul on my cheeks. “Know your place, _whore_.”

“Son of a bitch! I said get off!” I throw my head forward and feel blood on my cheeks now. Thersites reels back, clutching his nose and I wriggle out enough to kick his chest away.

He regains himself quickly and takes another swing which I smoothly duck out of the way of, even though the blows have dizzied me. By then, I am no longer the one being restrained. The Argives have regained enough sense now to intervene, one man holding Thersites back though looking as though he were loathe to touch him. I reach for the nearest plank to smack him in the face and knock out his teeth, but someone smacks it away, more sensible than I.

“Enough, Briseis. Take your wood and go.”

It takes me a moment longer than it would have usually to regain myself. I leave with the planks and the hammer someone other than I had thought to regain, but not before I spit blood at Thersites’ feet.

“She’s not worth Achilles’ wrath,” someone consoled.

Another added, almost ominously, “A woman will be the death of you, Thersites.”

Thersites is not settled.

“One day, _bitch_ , Achilles will not be there to shield you. One day he will be ash on a pyre and a name around a fire. Then you’ll be sorry.”

I turn, grinning with bloody teeth but steadily moving away, admiring his broken nose from a distance. My throbbing head is worth it. “I did a fairly decent job without him today, so I’ll take my chances, thanks!”

I laugh to myself as I approach the women’s hut in need of repair, even though it hurts my lips. I laugh when I think about how Semele will chastise me when I tell her, even as she tends my mouth with salves and gentle hands. I laugh hardest at the thought of Achilles dying.

It is a bitter and hollow sound. I drown it out with the hammer.

 

…

 

I am napping by Achilles’ hut, content with the labour I have done for the day, when a shadow darkens the inner lids of my eyes. I sense ominous intent.

“Semele, I have no regrets, save for that I did not get the bastard in the head.”

The voice that answers is low, commanding and entirely male. “It’s not Semele.”

For once, Diomedes wears something other than a smile. His mouth is one line, steady. But his hands speak loudly. They are clenched, calloused and the knuckles are bloodied.

Good. This is a Diomedes I feel less inclined to hold back against. I find he increasingly tests my graces.

“You threw a _hammer_ at my _cousin_.”

“I would say sorry, but I think you would find my apology rather cheap now.”

“You threw a _hammer_ at _my cousin_.”

I sat up, arms crossing defensively over my breasts. “I was provoked.”

“Agamemnon provokes me every day, you don’t see me launching projectile weapons at him. I thought you were wiser than to pick fights with men. How could you be so stupid?” He may not have any spears to throw at me now, but he lands those words in all the right places in me.

I press my arms into my breasts a little, trying to feel for monthly soreness but find none. I am not overly sensitive for my period then.

I look away, chewing the inside of my cheek. My eyes fall on the sea and its swash pulls an answer out of me. “He made a snide comment about freeing me and then he pinned me. It… It is not pleasant to be reminded of such things.”

With that, I seem to have snatched the wind from the sails of his anger, though I cannot understand why. Then he reaches down, his thumb and forefinger on my chin as he tilts the bruised half of my face to him. His free hand clenches so hard I hear the knuckles crack. The one on my face is feather soft and tingling. I rip away, not wanting his gentleness or his hardness. I want neither hand of these men, these Greeks.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be pinned? To have someone completely over power you?” I eye him in his armour, the kind that leaves the arms hardly covered for mobility or admiration. I resent his muscular figure and say, “No, I don’t suppose you would. Nor would you understand the anger of a slave.”

He opens and closes his mouth on several ideas but finds them all bitter and keeps them to himself. Finally, he tells me, “I have disciplined him regardless. Do not give me any cause to find a quarrel with Achilles in the future.”

I understand his split knuckles then. I blink. “Why? I have told you before I do not want your kindness.”

He takes his time to think up his bitter answer, this time spitting it out. “I will have no arguments with my comrades- least of all over a woman.”

I feel something like that needle slide between my ribs again except this time it is bigger, a dagger. “Well, thank you for beating your cousin for assaulting me. If you keep up with that punishment, all of the men here will have a scar from you soon enough.”

“You truly do hate me, don’t you?”

“I’ve told you before. I do not care, nor do I hate you. I am indifferent.” At least three of those words taste like lies so I keep on hissing to remove the flavour of untruth. “Do not expect me to be grateful to you for treating me like a human being, King Diomedes.”

He must not have a retort, for he walks away, swinging his punch-swollen fists. Semele bows to him as he stalks past and gives me the _Oh, he’s in a foul mood_ look which usually originates from Achilles.

“What’s got his tunic in a twist?” She gasps, hand over her mouth. “Your face!”

I sigh and drop my conflicted thoughts for the moment. “It’s a funny story.” I say it flatly.

“Let me get some salve first.”

As she tends to me with dove-soft hands, I tell her of my anger. Of Thersites and his comments about my breasts, which she scowls at understandably. She asks if maybe it is my monthly time and I laugh, call her wise but tell her no. But then I repeat his question about freedom and I see the same answer cross her features: _In a heartbeat._

“Do you think he will be trouble?” I ask, biting my lip.

She snorts. “For Achilles’ woman? I doubt it.” As easily as smoothing a crease from clothing, she has flattened my worry. She is silent for a moment, then asks all to casually as she wipes her medicine smelling hands, “What if he dies though?”

“He won’t.” It is as if she said water is dry and sand is wet. Before she can push it, I add, “You’re right. All Thersites is is a mouth on legs, one people do not care for, mind you. He can spread as many rumours about me and Diomedes as he dares. He shall have a king and a prince at odds then- over who gets to rip out his throat.”

A smile breaks out on Semele’s lips as admirable as the dawn. “You are one calculating woman, Briseis.”

My own lips do not hurt anymore when I smile so I say, “And you are one good friend, Semele.”

“Then can this good friend give some wise counsel?”

I nod eagerly.

“Make peace with the Argive. He is kind as far as he can understand that kindness.”

I tut. “Seriously?”

She nods and I turn from her sulking. I swear I hear her mumble something about Achilles and like calling to like.

“If I give in now, then I will be letting myself down more than I already do. At least Achilles is upfront about his bluntness. This… gentleness- it is wrong. Well, it is right, but on the wrong face. I only have room in my heart for one Greek and that is one to many already. The rest can rot or live or go home. I do not care. But they should not try to get into my good graces.”

“It is not sinful to not hate them, you know. In fact, I would be more worried if you stopped feeling at all.”

I press my lips until I taste blood again. She sighs, the sound reminding me of Patroclus when he thinks Achilles has done something unwise, but knows he cannot move him.

We have a moment of tense silence filled with the swash of the sea before she says, “I think we should celebrate your victory.”

I cannot help but snort again, but I accept the offer to change the tune of the atmosphere. It is as this morning. We climb over our differences and walk this life together. “Victory?”

“We all hate that bastard Thersites and you finally gave him one for us girls. I say we celebrate.” The curves of her lips have a wicked tilt now. I mirror it.

“What did you have in mind?”


	4. The Revel

 

We gather our girls and give them their tasks, sending them on their paths like bees sharing nectar. Quietly, I ask Eudokia if she had dealt with her problem though I see by the relief on her face that she has. Still, her hands are clenched white with strain. I place my brown one over it, still and cool.

“There is no shame in ridding your body of a life you did not wish to make. There is no shame in holding what power over your body you can, no matter what men- or _women_ -tell you.” There are a few conservatives who look down on those who do not wish to mother bastards. I used to be one of them. What could be more sacred than life?

Logic wins over passion though, though fear had a part to play to when either stress or pregnancy made my cycle late. A child should not be raised in a war camp. I may have been pregnant many times, but I would not have known for all the herbs I swallow. The first time, I felt heavy as Eudokia did, but then Semele did as I do now, placing a cool hand over my own and telling me of the small power I had over myself.

_“My mother always said, ‘You determine the laws of your body. It is as sacred as a temple and to be worshipped with the utmost care. You decide what goes in and what comes out.’”_

I repeat these words to Eudokia and she straightens with them, as if they support her back. She goes to work quickly, summoning our fellow females to a gathering, a celebration of victory.

The first to come are Nestor’s women, suspicious and slow. Odysseus’ are gathering in the distance. They eye the goats on spits, the array of cups and goblets, jugs and plates. Semele, Iphis (another slave of Achilles) and I had prepared some platters a few hours before sunset.

It is Nysia, tall and proud of bearing, who speaks up. “The men aren’t back for near two and a half weeks yet.”

I pick up a jug and offer it to her, “Who said anything about men?”

“Is it true you launched a hammer at Thersites?”

I curtsy in response. “I missed, but I tried.”

There is a moment of wariness on her face. I felt rather like a snake trying to tempt a mouse to sit in its mouth for a moment. Then, though it takes all of her forgotten muscles, Nysia joins me in smiling and takes the jug.

“I can drink to that,” she says.

…

 

We pass the night getting drunk of Achilles’ good wine. It is not as if he is not currently stealing more. It starts as a small liberation shared throughout the camp, Semele and I personally handing out cups and jugs, urging people to take from the platters which I sit by now. But soon the crowd grows with the night, as stars gain brightness from the darkness. Duties are shucked and plans dissolved. The livestock goes unfed and chores undone. Even the Argive slaves are freed to join us in the revelry.

All around the fires, women dance and sing, hair loose and dresses hiked up to our thighs, like Bacchants. There must be over nine-hundred of us, the dotted fires having stretched all the way down the beach. It is more than safe to say the Greeks will be wondering where all their wine has gone.

All around me explodes sound and colour. We wear the best stolen dresses or our cleanest rags, everywhere becoming a dizzying, giddy rainbow. A few of the noble-born girls sing and provide music, while the lower born ones belt out such bawdy tunes that we figure out their occupation before capture. There is no judgement amongst us though, though I find greater pleasure in Iphis’ made up ditty about Agamemnon:

“Shove your pride up your arse,

This war’s a bloody farse!”

Or so the chorus went.

Before, we were divided by class and walls. Then we became sisters in misery. Beggars, queens, nursemaids, slaves, whores, maidens and priestesses- anyone whose father could not pay a handsome ransom. As of this moment, we are maenads for the night and a little of Dionysus’ cheer seeps into us all, if only for a little while.

The Argive men stay in their corner of the beach unless patrolling the encampment for sneaky Trojans, whether by instinctual exclusion or Diomedes’ orders. They keep near the ditch and their eighty ships.

I do not care as he does not care for the trouble women cause, clearly.

He will not quarrel with his kin and comrades over mere _women_? I bet if someone questions his prowess he would be as quick to flex his spear arm as the rest of them. I do not realise how much I am fuming until the jewelled goblet begins to hurt my hand for how hard I clutch it. I down the full cup in one go and feel it rush straight to my head, with the rest of my feelings, prone to sloshing about when alcohol fuddles the mind.

My mind has just enough clarity for me to recall Thersites’ face, perhaps because I have been telling the story all night. I try to find his miserable little form on the far end of the beach, but it is too far to see. Or perhaps my gaze has been compromised by drink. Still, the wideness of his eyes as I launched the hammer is burned into my mind, as well as the mouse-squeak that followed. I burst out laughing until tears come into my eyes and Semele has to come and peel me off of the sand, making me steadily sip water until we return to the barley-sprinkled wine again.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” She clucks, ever the mother hen, though even she slurs.

“Not nearly enough if I can still remember my name!” I laugh, but she does not seem to have brought her humour with her tonight. Unable to dwell on a frown, I burst up with sudden energy and balance and find the nearest partner for dancing, goblet sloshing in my hand.

Every spillage we make a dedication, even though the gods are deaf or dead and downright cruel. Our libations to Dionysus, Demeter, Kore, Apollo and Artemis are plenty and sloshing. A few are even to me.

“Good on you girl!”

“Get Agamemnon next time!”

“If only we had the guts to slaughter them all!”

Hardly a sentence gets finished before we burst into laughter at the absurdity of it. I want to celebrate as the Greeks do when they win battles or take Trojan armour. But something feels off, unbalanced. Still, I keep sipping the wine, though it tastes drier than normal.

Dazed, I stumble and tumble onwards and pathless, away from the sounds of the revel, shoulders shaking with sobs of laughter.

By the time I regain some sense of self other than my grip of the goblet, my left ankle is enveloped in the surf. I turn, toes to the water and the endless, endless sea, sobered.

Outside, I danced and drank and sang. Inside, I was quiet. A chill swept through me as I gaze at the endless sea which carried endless troubles towards me but would not take me away.

I extend my arm and gracefully turn my wrist, tipping half a goblet of wine into the water, sweetening the salt.

“To you, Thetis, the sea-bitch as miserable as the rest of us.”

I watch the colour in front of my feet, once dark and strong, bleed into nothing, as a memory fades with generations. The image replaces Thersites’ shock.

It was no victory, not really. I had thrown a hammer at a man and missed. Now he would probably find his revenge. The memory of his hands on my wrists and knees between my thighs makes me shiver, though I keep it all inside like internal bleeding.

Tonight, Semele is smiling, Eudokia even danced and Iphis is singing. I can keep up the lying celebration for them, this idea of rebellion. I pull myself back from the sea. In the morning, we will all remember what it is to be pinned. For now, I throw myself recklessly into the revel, entirely aware of its mortality.

In the end, the dogs flee to the other side of the beach for some peace.

I collapse on Achilles’ bed in the early hours of the morning with Semele, several of the younger girls and Patroclus’ brave dog returned, ribs aching with half-earned laughter, head throbbing with drink and a little bit twisted inside.

_One day he will be ash on a pyre and a name around a fire._

I will not even have that.

I find the sea is loud.

…

 

I know it is a dream because I am at home and my father is smiling at me. I look around for the door outwards, but there are none in the dream. Just Briseus and I. Around my heart, I begin to feel a razor-sharp string coil.

All around me is hot and dry.

Father lovingly opens his arms to me smiling and blood pours from his palms. I open my mouth to scream in horror but a rat crawls out. I lift my skirts to run, but in another gush of blood, Achilles burst from my split womb and I can no longer walk.

“Mistress,” the bloodied pair say with one voice between them, advancing on my limp form from two different directions. “Mistress… Mistress…”

I try to crawl like the rat, but it feels as though I am moving through sludge. Then Achilles grabs me by the shoulder and begins to shake me.

“Mistress Briseis,” Eudokia says, bright eyed enough to shine through my blurred vision. “The Argive wishes to speak to you.”

I push my face back into the pillow, reaching blindly over Iphis behind to smack Semele in her nose. She stops snoring and mumbles a barely intelligible, “What?”

It feels like I have a gong vibrating in my head. Damn you, Dionysus. “Diomedes. Door. You get it.”

Sobbingly, she groans and slaps me back, Eudokia still waiting above us. “You get it.”

“Mistress,” pleads Eudokia. The next sigh is one of reluctance.

“Give me a minute,” I manage with a sandpaper tongue, trying to remember what it was like to have feeling my toes.

It takes five even without sorting myself out into some semblance of presentability. I wipe the drool from my cheek and slide the sleeves of my dress back up. Dignity is for queens, I tell myself as I put down the comb after surveying my nest of hair in the mirror. Defeated, I go to the door.

I am half surprised it is quite late in the morning and Diomedes, judging by his sweatiness, has already done his exercises. Shielding my eyes from the infernal sun’s glare, I support myself on the doorway’s frame.

“Morning,” I say dryly.

The beam of his grin irritates me more than the sun and I cover my eyes completely. Oh, he fancies being well-natured now does he? As capricious as mercury, these men. “Good morning. How are you fairing this fine hour?”

I am not in the mood for this. “I feel as bonnie as Demeter on the first day of spring. How are you?”

“Absolutely magnanimous.” Back to his sly, two faced self then.

I cannot feel my face enough to tell whether I smile or wince. “Thrilling. Anything that will benefit me?”

“Actually,” he says, “while I have my men tending the ships, I was wondering if you needed any work done for the women’s communes. Lest you try and do it yourself and attack one of my men.”

“I thought you did not want any mither over women.”

“I apologise for my tone yesterday. My emotions got the better of me and I wish to make amends.”

I lower my hand so that he sees my narrowed eyes. I am unable to announce forgiveness. “What do you want in return?”

The easy way he shrugs reminds me of Odysseus, which tells me to watch my tongue, my step and my back. He keeps to much company with that sly old dog to not learn any tricks. “Nothing. I just wanted to help.”

I must still be a little drunk because I say, “Then let us all go free.” The smile falls from his face and straight onto mine, catlike and cruel. “Thought so.

“I fixed the Myrmidon one myself already but the roof of one of the women’s huts- Nestor’s- is leaky. You can get someone on that if you’re still in a _magnanimous_ mood. Then, if you still have some charity for us _poor_ women folk than you can have them build the next commune for when the next batch are dragged back from this expedition. And after that you can repair the pens for the cattle- someone got a little too rowdy last night and broke the gate. I would be oh so humbly grateful, King Diomedes.”

Below the steps, he rubs the back of his neck again, considering. I wait though I am dying to go back inside and sleep. “I thought you said you did not hate me.”

“I do not care enough about you to hate you.”

Palms upturned, he takes a step upwards and I recoil, reminded of my father and the dream. “What can I do to placate you?”

I tut. Typical king, only ever remembering the part of the conversation that pleases him. “I have already told you. Go home or let us free.”

He takes another step and I am tempted to kick him down to keep him from getting closer. “If I did either of those things, my honour”-

“What about our honour?”

He lowers his foot back down and looks up at me like a marble statue: deaf, cold and unyielding. It occurs to me I should probably be begging for his silence or touching his chin in supplication, but it is beyond me now. The sea sounds so loud.

“Consider the roof fixed by tonight. The accommodation will be some weeks however.” His back is to me as he says this so I can only read his tone: the efficient commander, no word wasted. “Good bye, Briseis.”

I hold my tongue though I feel at the wrong time.

Semele whistles low when I enter. “You did not have to be so harsh on him. He is not as bad as the others.”

I stop, stunned. How low our standards have fallen. “He is a Greek.” And that is answer enough.

She has no reply, but her eyes grow narrow and her lips thin.


End file.
